Ariel H Martinez
Prof. Carole Ehleben
Eng 102 Comp & Lit 2
April 23,2013
Impulse of Adolescents
Adolescence is a time in life we all go through that is often filled with moments of impulsive actions, times we acted before thinking. This is a common occurrence of this time in our lives. As we see in T. Coraghessan Boyle's "Greasy Lake" some of us make it through better than others. "Greasy Lake" demonstrates the ignorance and impulsivity of youth as they transition to adulthood. The first sentence of the story says almost everything about the characters. “There was a time when courtesy and winning ways went out of style, when it was good to be bad, when you cultivated decadence like a taste” (Boyle 141). In other words these young boys were living in a time of their lives where there were no rules, they drank, they smoked, they did cocaine. They, in their minds, were invincible and this rush carried them straight into a situation that forever changed their lives. We see this throughout the story as the author first boasts of how “bad” he and his friends are, next when they try and rape the girl in the parking lot, and finally how the main character thinks about the consequences of his actions after he commits them.
There are many examples in this story, the majority being in the beginning, that demonstrate the three boys’ self-perception of being “bad”. When you live a lifestyle that encourages large amounts of alcohol consumption, pot smoking, experimenting with other drugs, and using women, you tend to create an aura around yourself that makes you feel invincible. Most teens feel this to an extent but when mixed with these other activities you usually have a different view on life. Boyle mentions that Digby had just finished a course in Kung-Fu which demonstrates a desire to fight but being the ignorant 19 year old he is he failed to understand that completing one Kung-Fu course does not make him an expert. The author...